In the event that a guild leader takes a leave of absence and remains inactive for an extended period of time, it can be difficult for some guilds to carry on as normal. To help assist with these situations, we're introducing a new system in patch 4.3 known as "inactive guild leader replacement" that will allow players of the appropriate rank to take over leadership of a guild from an inactive guild leader via the Guild tab.

The way inactive guild leader replacement works is pretty straightforward. If a guild leader’s character is inactive for 30 days, a notification will appear in the Guild News & Events feed which can only be seen by guild members who are eligible to become the new guild leader. To determine eligibility, the game will look for the highest ranked character in the guild that's logged on in the past week, and any guild member from that rank will be able to request guild leadership simply by clicking on the notification.

As with many actions in World of Warcraft, clicking on the notification will open up a confirmation window which, once accepted, will transition leadership from the inactive guild leader to the first player to request leadership. If guild leadership is changed, the old guild leader will be notified via email to his or her registered Battle.net address. While some players may need to log out and back in before their Guild tab will visually update, the change in leadership will be immediate, with all ranks and permissions remaining in-tact.

Please note that if you're an active leader of a guild, this system should not affect you or your guild. The goal of inactive guild leader replacement is simply to allow guilds which have found themselves without leadership for a long period of time to resolve the situation on their own without the need to contact our In-Game Support department.

Inactive guild leader replacement is currently live on the PTR, but keep in mind that it may be difficult to test, as a guild leader will need to be inactive for a full 30 days before the option to transition leadership will become available.

Well, it has always been 30 days. The difference between now and the new system is that currently, you put in a ticket in order to get leadership after the guild leader hasn't logged on it at least 30 days.

It's all relative. It's really not that short, but for a Guild Master leaving having control of all aspects of the guild, it's a LONG time for thoese in the guild. You used to be able to petition it to you, but the problem with that was that anyone of any rank could do that.

Just log in once in the 30 day period to keep it rolling if you're concerned.

How is this difficult to test? Have 20 Blizz employees create 5 guilds each. Log in on first day, none thereafter. Then log in on officer toons inside each respective guild every day thereafter, to maintain activity. They DO want to test this, right?

Sounds ridiculous, guild leaders won't be able to take a break from WoW.So if they know they're going to come back to WoW someday, they'll have to kick every single member out of the guild so nobody can take the level 25 guild.

No it's not. If you're gone for more than 30 days you should pass leadership anyhow - even if it's only temporary. I like this. Just hope that some dumbasses dont use/abuse this.

There's nothing to abuse, 30 days might not be long.., but hopefully officer n' alike talks a potential g-transfer over, n' if the reason is valid once / if an old leader returns, it's easy to transfer back.
Either your there for the guild or your not, don't really see any grey zone..

It seems like a lot of people did not know that the 30 day inactive rule has been around for a while and is not just being implemented in 4.3. They are just making it more automated instead of having to put in a ticket to get the guild leadership changed over from an inactive guild master.

Sounds ridiculous, guild leaders won't be able to take a break from WoW.So if they know they're going to come back to WoW someday, they'll have to kick every single member out of the guild so nobody can take the level 25 guild.

I forsee a lot of raging.

The same system is already in place now, if an guild master has been inactive for 30 days you can write a ticket to transfer leadership to someone else in the guild